First and foremost, rich people care about the deficit. More than 85 percent of the survey participants said they considered the nation’s budget deficit to be a “very important” problem facing the country, the researchers found. In addition, nearly one-third of those surveyed said the budget deficit and too much government spending is the nation’s biggest issue.

That stands in contrast to the rest of the country, only 7 percent of which focused on the budget deficit, instead zeroing in on jobs and the economy, according to a 2011 CBS survey cited by the researchers.

“Why did policymakers focus so intently on the deficit issue?” Page and Bartels wrote in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. “One reason may be that the small minority that saw the deficit as the nation’s priority had more clout than the majority that didn’t.”

Rich Americans also have ideas about how to cut that deficit that differ from the less wealthy. Compared to others, the survey found the rich are more likely to want to cut government-subsidized health care and social welfare programs like Social Security. They’re also less supportive of initiatives that help the unemployed and raise the standard of living for low-wage workers than the rest of the country.

Wow, if it weren’t for this study, I would have had no idea that rich people have completely different priorities and far more political influence than everyone else. Thanks, Science!

Yves makes a good case for calling the billionaires who control our country “oligarchs” instead of “elites” – my only hesitation about endorsing the switch is that it clears the field for the right to continue accusing progressives of being “out-of-touch ivory tower elitists”. I think it’s valuable to point out who the real elites are in this country, but I do agree that “oligarchs” is a better descriptive term, and immediately conjures up all the right overtones of power, avarice and corruption.

But the six minutes here, the twenty seconds there, the forty-five minutes how-many-weeks later – the real time it takes to commit the “heroic” or “villainous” act – are such a microscopic percentage of my life. Even what can be synopsized from this journal… are things that have happened to me, not that I have done. What you look like you’re doing and what you feel like you’re doing are disparate enough to mute any mouth that might attempt description!

Wow. Just… wow. Okay, admittedly Google’s counsel could have done a better job of explaining that internet advertising isn’t really all that different from traditional advertising, just with better and more dynamic targeting, but in all fairness he probably didn’t think he’d need to. My condensed transcript for those of you who don’t have time for videos or Louie Gohmert:

Gohmert: “Isn’t it true that you sell your Gmail users’ data to your corporate customers so they can send ads to them?”

Salgado: “Well no.”

Gohmert: “So couldn’t you therefore sell the same kind of data to the government BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI?”

Salgado: “Wait… what?”

Gohmert: “HuffPo reporters are simpletons.”

Sensenbrenner: “My son is a HuffPo reporter.”

Gohmert: “Oh. Mumble grumble mumble.”

And one direct quote because there is no way I can do it justice:

Salgado: “Sir, I think those are apples and oranges. The disclosure of the identity-”

Wouldn’t it be nice if more Republicans could have empathy for gay people without having to have a gay family member first? Sure, it’s great that Rob Portman finally tapped into “the Bible’s overarching themes of love and compassion and [his] belief that we are all children of God,” but he didn’t bother to have that conversation with himself until he had to think about his own kid not being able to get married. As long as it’s someone else’s gay son or daughter, who cares, right?